Criminology - The Family Feud Killer

Episode Date: October 15, 2023

Timothy Bliefnick murdered his wife Rebecca after appearing on the game show The Family Feud. The murder occurred a couple of years later, but one answer Timothy gave on the show was very telling. It provided a glimpse into the marriage and foreshadowed its ending. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss Timothy Bliefnick, who has been called The Family Feud killer. Tim and Rebecca had three children, but their marriage spiraled after the show aired. Rebecca's friends and family have said that Tim was manipulative and controlling. When Rebecca was found murdered, it didn't take long for police to look at Tim as their prime suspect. The couple was going through a divorce and a nasty custody battle. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 278 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Morf. How you doing, buddy? I'm doing good. How you doing? I'm doing pretty good. My whole family's been kind of fighting a cold. I don't know if it's the change in weather up here in the north. You know, we went from like 88 last week to this week. at being in the 40s at one point. That makes no sense, but that's what we're dealing with.

That's the northeast. We had a little bit of a cold spell the other night. It went down into the 60s. So I feel you. Yeah, I should send you a card. Yeah, that's rough. Let's go ahead and do our Patreon shoutouts. We had Angel Zubia jump out at our highest level and Cassie Cassidy. So that's a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks to everyone that takes the time to support. the show. It means a lot to us. And if you'd like to support criminology, you can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. All right, buddy. Let's go ahead and jump into this episode. And this week, we're discussing a murder case that many may have heard of because it's been in the news lately, in part because there was a very quick trial and conviction. But it's also due to the fact that

the killer in this case once appeared on a game show. And one of the things he said, seemed to foreshadow the crime that he would go on to commit the murder of his wife, Rebecca Bleafnick. We're talking about the family feud killer, Timothy Bleafnick. In January 2020, the Bleifnick family appeared on an episode of Family Feud. The family had flown from Quincy, Illinois to Los Angeles in the fall of 2019 to film the episode. One question asked on the show by host Steve Harvey was, What's your biggest mistake you made at your wedding? Timothy Blyfnick answered while looking at his wife,

Honey, I love you, said I do. The audience seemed to be taken aback by this answer. If he was joking, the joke didn't seem to go real well. Sensing the negative reaction, he quickly added, Not my mistake, I love my wife, before asking Steve Harvey, I'm going to get in trouble for that, aren't I? Bliefnick would later say it was just a joke, and though his answer was one of the answers on the board,

it didn't age well at all. So more if I don't know if Family Feud is a show that you've watched over the years. I haven't watched as much of the Steve Harvey Family Feud. And I think there was some other host before that. But I used to watch Richard Dawson on Family Feud a lot when I was younger. And it was a funny show that you just didn't have to think about a lot. But in researching this case, one of the things I started thinking was that that that version, the Richard Dawson version, I don't think would go over well today.

I mean, he was very affectionate, let's say, to all the contestants, the female contestants on that show. That's one thing I remember. Yeah, I remember as a kid watching that and thinking, is this appropriate that he's kissing all these women on the show? But I guess it was a different error. But there have been some different host, and most of them are, forget. to me until Steve Harvey. He's pretty funny and adds a good amount of humor to the show. So it really

makes the show pop in my opinion. But then the other thought that I had was, you know, how many fights or relationships have been affected by people going on game shows such as the family feud? The other one that really comes to mind is the newlywed game. And I don't know if you're if you remember that one, but I can just imagine how many fights or separations or even divorces occurred over some of these shows. Yeah, the newlywed game is a perfect example because they would ask husbands, things about their wives, and sometimes they'd answer it wrong or they'd answer something that was so outlandish that the wife would be visibly angry. So you can see how these different game shows between a husband and wife could cause some kind of rift.

Sometime in 2021, two years after they filmed the episode, Tim and Rebecca Bleafnick separated. Tim and Rebecca, who went by Becky, had met at Quincy University when they were both students. They started dating two years after graduation and were married on September 18th, 2009. They had three children, all sons. Becky, a pharmaceutical salesperson, quit working to stay at home with their children. Tim would later tell 48 hours. I thought this was it. You know, I'm going to be 85 and sitting on a porch and a rocking chair with her talking about how good life was. That wasn't something that would ever happen. According to Becky's sister, Sarah Riley, on 48 hours, the first five or so

years of their marriage were all right. But after that, Tim got progressively more manipulative and controlling. Sarah said that things got worse when Becky went back to school in rolling in nursing classes. Sarah said that Tim not only didn't support Becky, he also didn't increase his time with the boys. And I think there are a couple of things that are interesting here for me more. The first is that, you know, Tim saying, you know, I thought we'd be 85 years old sitting on the porch, talking about how good life what. Well, isn't that what most people think when you go

into a marriage? I don't think very many people go into a marriage thinking this is going to end badly. Now, we know a lot of them do, but at first, it's all, you know, wine and roses. And then the second thing that jumped out of me was this, you know, he got more manipulative and controlling. And we hear that time and time again in the episodes that we do men who become more controlling in the relationship as it goes on and it never works out well yeah that's interesting to me too when the relationship seems to start out okay because according to sarah it was okay for the first five years or so but then all of a sudden this change happened to where it was noticeable that he started getting more and more controlling. And I wonder what caused that. I wonder if there's something that could be pinpointed

as to what happened or was that always there within him and somehow it just started to come to the surface. Well, the word all right, you know, analyze that. Becky's sister said, ah, it was all right. So even that to me doesn't scream the marriage was really great from the beginning, it was all right. In January 2021, it was Tim who filed for divorce after refusing to go to couples counseling. According to Tim in his 48 hours interview, Becky struggled with patience and stress a lot, especially when it came to the kids. And it created some conflict. In March 22, Becky sent a Facebook message to her friend Christine Mandel about Tim's behavior, saying, if he doesn't get his way, he may literally lose his mind. By

June 2022, messages revealed in court showed Becky believe that Tim had true mental health problems and didn't want her children around him or his dad without third-party supervision, and that she wanted an order of protection. The following month, in July 2022, Becky told Gary Collins, a family friend, If anything ever happens to me, it will be Tim. And she mentioned that she thought Tim was hiding money from her. Becky also told her friend Christine Mandel, Tim cares more about hurting me than anyone else.

It was clearly becoming a messy and in Becky's mind, a potentially dangerous split. In January 2023, Becky refused to agree to divorce terms that gave Tim 60% of the parenting time and directed that he wouldn't have to pay any child support in very little alimode. Becky wanted visitation between Tim and the children to be supervised for their safety. this divorce was so contentious that Tim and Becky were ordered to stay within three feet of their vehicles when they were exchanging custody of their children. On February 23rd, 2003, 41-year-old Rebecca Bleafnick didn't pick up her three sons from school. This was extremely unlike her. She was a devoted mother who was usually on top of things. According to Tim, he couldn't get a hold of her

and claimed that the school had contacted him to come pick up to kids. So he texted Becky's dad, William Postal. Around 3.30 p.m., William went to Becky's Quincy, Illinois home to check on her. And when he entered the home, he made a shocking and heartbreaking discovery. He found his daughter dead on the floor of the upstairs bathroom. So I think, you know, to say that this was a contentious divorce, that might even be an understatement. When a judge or someone orders you to stay within three feet of your vehicle when you're exchanging custody of your children, okay, things are not going well. That's,

that's very obvious. And the one thing that really jumped out at me was Becky refusing these divorce terms. Now, I don't know who wouldn't refuse these divorce terms. Tim would get 60% of the parenting time, wouldn't pay a dime in child support, and very little Alamo. Yeah, it seemed pretty one-sided in his favor, and I can't blame Becky for wanting to counter that or just reject it altogether. And I'm sure that she probably was going to have her attorney fight back and try and get something that was more even or more in her favor. But unfortunately, she never got the chance. Becky hadn't died from natural causes. She had clearly been murdered, her body riddled with bullet holes. It would later be determined at autopsy that she had been

shot 14 times, twice in the hand, three times in the arm, and nine times in the chest. According to forensic pathologist Dr. Scott Denton, because none of the bullets hit Becky's head or heart, her death would have taken at least several minutes. One of the shots severed her spinal cord, which paralyzed her, and another hit her lung, which would have made it hard for her to breathe. Bullet fragments found in the bath mat and the floor showed that Becky had been shot at least some of those times while she was already down. Becky had clearly suffered a slow and painful death. And Morph, you and I have done so many episodes. We've talked about people being killed, people being shot.

What's the first thing that jumps out of you when you hear that a wife and mother was shot 14 times in her own home? It sounds like overkill to me. a crime of passion maybe. Yeah. Yeah. And I would think that the police would naturally kind of start along that path. When you think about rage, then you start to think about, well, who is angry at this woman to shoot her so many times.

It seems like if someone was just there to kill Becky for whatever reason and just wanted her dead quickly, they could have. shot her once in the head or did what they call it double tap once in the chest and once in the head. But to shoot her that many times in non-vital areas, it almost seems like they wanted her to suffer and have a lot of pain. Police called to the scene, determined that a patio chair had been moved to allow someone to climb onto the roof of the home. An upstairs window to one of the boys' rooms had been pried open with some kind of tool, leaving metal. scratches around the window frame.

There was a partial shoe print left on the carpet. Becky's bedroom door had been broken. Splinters of wood littered the floor. Behind the door, there was a cell phone that was determined to be Becky's. Police discovered that at 11. a.m. She tried to dial 911 using that cell phone. And in a panic instead dialed 911-26 before dropping the phone.

it ultimately ending up behind the door. At 112 a.m. an ADT home security alert signaled that the front door of the home was open. At 127 a.m. There was a second ADT alert about the front door being opened. Apparently, these alerts were not alerts that went to ADT home security monitoring dispatch. If the alarm had been set and someone broke in, the alarm would have sounded and ADT would have been alerted and in turn would have sent police to the residents.

This seems to be more like alerts recorded on the home security system, not ones sent to ADT dispatch. Police questioned neighbors and didn't find any that had any info other than one neighbor who said at 6.45 a.m., they drove past and noticed that Becky's front door was open. So most of these systems, ADT included, have like a home pad, usually looks something like an iPad, and it's a little computer that records all the activity if a window is open, if a door's opened, and even if the alarm's not set and doesn't set the alarm off triggering ADT to be notified, it still records all of this activity. So police were able to go back and look at this and it helped provide a timeline.

of what was going on in the house. And we talk about advancements and technology a lot, how it aids in their investigation. Here's just another little piece of that. The ability to know what time a door was opened. That can be a very valuable piece of information. And a piece of information that you wouldn't have been able to get before these types of systems were available.

And it's just really unfortunate that the alarm wasn't armed because if it had been armed, then it would have went off and caused a blaring sound that probably would have been heard by neighbors at that time of night. And it would have sent a distress message to ADT and they could have called police. So apparently it wasn't armed. One thing with these security systems is that most of them have window sensors. and depending on how many windows you have in your home, you may elect not to have all of them armed with one of these sensors. And if the alarm is set and the sensor isn't on one of those windows that's opened,

then the alarm wouldn't sound. Yeah, we don't have all the details about, you know, what the alarm information told police. But the one thing we do know is that the door was opened twice. the first time at 112 a.m. The second time at 127 a.m. And I did find that a little odd that the door was opened twice when it appears as though entry was gained through an upstairs window.

So you have to question more. Did the intruder actually enter through the front door lead through the front door, thereby maybe making the window arrooge, right, to appear as though someone broke in through the window, or did they actually break in through the window, kill Becky, and for whatever reason, open the door twice. Police believe that Becky's killer had ambushed her. Becky was especially vulnerable because she was weak and had limited range of motion from an abdominal surgery she had a few days earlier.

The attack was fast. Just one minute after she was trying to dial 911 upstairs, her phone had been knocked out of her hand. She had been shot 14 times, and her killer had run downstairs and out the front door. Investigators found eight nine millimeter shell casings on the floor. There were small bits of colored plastic on the floor around Becky's body. Nothing was missing from the home. This didn't seem to be a robbery gone wrong. It seemed that Becky had been targeted. There wasn't a lot of speculation about who could have done this. Becky's sister Sarah and her husband Brett immediately pointed authorities toward Becky's estranged husband, Tim Bleafnick. The two were going through a divorce at the time and like we talked about it wasn't going well. They were battling for custody of their

three children, ownership of their home and also fighting over their assets. So police surely would have looked close at him regardless. But the more police. asked people in Becky's circle. The more compelling he looked as a suspect. The messages Becky had sent people in the conversations she had with them painted a clear picture that she was afraid of Tim. The message she sent to her friend was especially chilling. It read, if something ever happens to me, please make sure the number one person of interest is Tim, is that is who would do something to me. I'm putting this in writing that I'm fearful. he will somehow harm me, come after me, or will try to do something to me that takes me away

from the kids or the kids away from me. And we know more that, you know, the husband, the ex-husband, the separated husband is going to be looked at in any case where, you know, a wife is murdered and vice versa. but when you add what all of these people in Becky's circle are saying to police, when you look at these messages that she sent to people, it paints a pretty compelling picture that she was very fearful of Tim Bleafin. Yeah, it seems that in most cases the police have to figure out where to start. They don't have a victim who's in her own words saying, look at this person.

So I think this really, along with everything else they were told by people in Becky's circle, really made them laser focused on Tim. The night that Becky was killed, the three boys, ages 12, 10, and 6 years old, were sleeping over at Tim's house. Becky was still recovering from the surgery and had asked Tim to keep the boys for an extra night. It was fortunate that the boys weren't home during the attack. and it seemed a little too much like a coincidence. Authorities were quickly sure it wasn't just good luck.

They locked in on 39-year-old Tim Bleafnick as the prime suspect, and on March 13, 2023, he was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder and an additional count of home invasion. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water.

Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. To say that this case went to trial quickly would be an understatement. Over the past couple years, we've talked about cases where court proceedings have been delayed again and again. due to COVID, but on May 23rd, 2002, just three months after Becky's murder. Tim Bleafnick's trial began. One reason that this trial started so quickly was that while most murder defendants

waive their right to a speedy trial and opt to delay it as long as possible, Tim pleaded not guilty. And he didn't waive his right to a speedy trial, which meant that he had to be brought to trial within 90 days of the date of his arrest. That's not a lot of time for a defense attorney team to plot out a defense, but on the flip side, it's not a lot of time for the prosecution to build a case. But as prosecutor Josh Jones told 48 hours, we were going to be ready come hell or high water in all 46 witnesses for the prosecution testified over five days of trial.

Witness by witness, the evidence against him piled up and was laid out. And this is one of the things that really shocked me. I mean, we routinely see that from arrest to trial, that time can be a year, two years, three years. And that's not even, you know, throwing in the COVID delays. I mean, that's just kind of normal that it, it does take a while for these defendants to go to trial. So, you know, three months, really is quick. Now, why would that be? When most defendants want to drag it out as long as possible, why would Tim not want to do so? And did his defense team play a role in that? Did they have advice for him? Because it's going to make it tougher on them. But as we said, it also does make it tougher on the prosecution. So could it have been a calculated tactic, I guess is my question.

Yeah, and I hope I'm never in a situation where I'm on trial for a murder, I don't know, for a plan to be, but if I was, I think I'd personally want my team to be prepared as much as possible, take their time and build a strong defense for me. So to me, I'm a little surprised that he weighed that delaying and chose to go forward as fast as he did. Yeah, I was too. The other thing that I thought about was, you know, was he so cocky that this was going to go in his favor?

And he made the decision that he didn't want to spend any more time incarcerated than he had to. That's kind of hard to believe with, with the evidence that was against him. But, you know, it's hard to tell what these people are thinking sometimes. The timing of Becky's murder was one big red flag.

Their divorce case was supposed to go to trial on March 3rd, the week after she was killed. Becky had told several people that she was afraid of Tim. But Tim's defense attorney, Casey Schnack, who was also his divorce attorney, disputed Becky's claim, saying, I've never seen any pictures of her with bruises or marks, any allegations of him beating on her, nothing. Another sign of Tim's guild is that at 11.51 a.m. on the 23rd, he called the school his sons went to, telling staff there not to let the kids walk home.

Instead, they were to wait for him to pick them up. This isn't consistent with what he told everyone else, which was that the school had contacted him after Becky had failed to pick them up that day. A crowbar was found in Tim's basement. This crowbar was consistent with the tool, believed to have left marks on Becky's upstairs window, but it couldn't be conclusively matched as the exact same tool that had been used, authorities collected many shell casings from Tim's home and found that 27 of them had been fired from the same gun that killed Becky. Tim had been ordered by a judge to return

the 9mm CZ75 handgun that Becky had bought him as a gift while they were together, but he never did give it back. Tim claimed that he didn't have the handgun at the time of her death and that it was missing. On February 10th, just two weeks before she was killed, Tim called the Quincy Police Department and asked if he could turn the gun into them for them to give Tobaki so that he didn't have to do it in person, but they said no. So Tim never turned the gun over and had no explanation as to what happened to it. Attorney Casey Schnack tried to cast doubt that the ballistic match was correct, saying that the analysis used to confirm the showcasing came from the same weapon that killed Becky is subject to human error like anything else. The gun used to kill Becky was

never used in any other crime. The casings collected the scene and at Tim's home didn't match any other casings entered into the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network. To date, the gun that was used to kill Becky has not been found. On February 27, days after the murder, police found an abandoned blue Schwinn bike by the Quincy Public Schools bus barn, less than half a block from Tim Bleafnick's home. Police came to believe that this bike may have been used by Tim to ride to Beckies, commit the crime, and then help him to get away. So Morvai, I want to talk a little bit about the defense attorney saying that, you know, this shell casing analysis is subject to human error like anything else. And technically, I guess that's true. You could say that everything

is subject to human error, but this is a pretty advanced. science. Now, they can conclusively tell that casings were fired from a certain gun. The casings all have the same marks on them. So I get what the defense attorney is trying to do, but I don't think it's the same as, you know, we're talking about comparing hairs under a microscope in the 1970s. I don't think we're talking apples and apples here. Also, I don't think it helps you at all when the shell casings found at the scene match shell casings found inside your home. Yeah, that seems like a real uphill battle for the defense to try and explain away. And although the attorney tried, I'm not sure how much the jury really bought into it. A review of surveillance captured on

neighborhood home security cameras helped strengthen the theory that the bike was used in the crime. In fact, footage on area cameras revealed a lot. Becky's next door neighbor had a surveillance camera that was triggered by motion. If something was moving, it started recording. At 105 a.m. on February 22nd, about 24 hours before Becky was killed, their camera started recording. sending push notifications to both of the neighbor's phones, their camera captured an unidentified person, walking down Becky's driveway, heading toward the back of her house.

At 153 a.m., the person walked back the other way, setting off the camera again. This was the second night. Someone had been prowling around Becky's home in the dark. On February 14th, the neighbor's camera captured an unidentified person walking to and from her home. But this neighbor, Taylor Hyman, wasn't the kind of person who saw signs of potential

trouble and didn't do anything about it. It turns out he immediately texted Becky about the person creeping around her home. Hyman told 48 hours, I saw that one in the middle of the night and texted Becky immediately. The next morning, Becky confirmed that while she hadn't seen anyone in her drive, way. She thought she had heard voices and the motion sensor light out back had turned on. I think we have to applaud this neighbor, Taylor Hyman here, because we talk about so many cases where somebody hears screaming and they don't call the police or do anything about it. This neighbor, Taylor, got these alerts and instead of sitting back and saying,

uh, it's probably nothing immediately texted Becky. So, you know, all the cases we talk about where a neighbor doesn't do anything, here they did the right thing and reached out to Becky to try and warn her. Yeah, I think it's a good observation. We do often talk about people who seemingly probably should have done something but didn't. And, you know, here's a case where someone doesn't have to do anything, but they do. They make the decision to notify someone. Authorities were able to find surveillance footage from nearby residents. and found that the same person who was creeping toward Becky's house at night had been riding a bike through town, toward her home.

To prosecutor Josh Jones, it was clear that the person who murdered Becky was the bike rider. He told 48 hours, every time you see a person at the Hyman residence, you see a person riding a bike down the road. Just a few minutes before, you see a person on that Hyman video. Although there was no video from the Hyman's camera on the morning of February 23rd, the morning Becky was killed, there was video captured from nearby of someone riding a bike toward Becky's home before she was killed and riding away directly after.

Unfortunately, you can't tell who the person in any of the videos is. All that can be made out is that it's the same person and that the bike they're riding has no reflectors on the tires. Just like the bike found dumped in the bushes near the house, Tim Blithnick was renting. Investigators found someone of interest on surveillance footage from a nearby home, while the person was never conclusively identified due to the quality of the footage, it's hard to imagine it being anyone other than Tim Bleafnick. So I talked about, you know, the shell casing evidence, not looking good for Tim. You know, I don't think any of this looks great for Tim.

It may not be as conclusive. You can't tell who it is exactly in the videos. But this bite being found in the bushes, you know, so close to. to the house that Tim was renting, none of it looks good. You'd have to say that. Yeah, it's just one thing stacking on top of another and just really building up, making Tim look more and more guilty. Becky's boyfriend, Ted Johnson, was sleeping over at her house the night of February 13th, one of the nights that the unidentified person was spotted near her home. Ted had only been there since 11.45 p.m. So he hadn't been parked outside all day, which,

is important for the timeline the next day on the 14th. Tim Bliefnick searched online for Ted Johnson's license plate number and the VIN for his car, 200 times to be exact. He searched from 110 a.m. to 1.30 a.m. He also called the Missouri Department of Revenue, which has a motor vehicle division that deals with car registration. Tim's defense attorney Casey Schnack argued that it's just a coincidence. that Tim searched for that exact plate number and VIN

when the car had been parked outside of Becky's house, the night that a neighbor's camera captured someone walking to and from the home. Because in her opinion, it wasn't Tim in that video. That's what she said in court. And you think about the prosecution building a case, right, against someone. And I think you mentioned it more of,

it's just like, stacking things on top of each other. Some of the things are going to be damning, like the shell casing evidence. And I think you'd have to put this in the same category. Why is Tim searching for this exact license plate number and VIN unless he was at Becky's house and saw it parked either out in front or in the driveway? Yeah, it's pretty damning because even if he knew Ted's name, he couldn't just search this VIN by pulling up his name, and so I think you're right on the money.

He had to have been there to get this VIN number in person. But vehicle ID numbers wasn't the only thing Tim had been searching. Investigators found that on Tim's cell phone, there were incriminating searches, including how to open my door with a crowbar, how to make a homemade pistol silencer, and how to clean gunpowder off your hands. As for those other searches,

Tim's defense attorney said, there's no date or time as to when the searches were done. So we don't know if they were done before the murder, and we don't know if they were done after the murder. While that may be true, investigators also found that Tim Bliefnick's fitness tracker had been disconnected on four key dates. February 14th, the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd. The same dates that an unidentified person on bike was seen near Becky's home. His iPhone had also been locked during these times. The prosecutor pointed out, the only gaps are when he's on a bike and he's headed to Becky's house. The first few visits were believed to be practice runs when he planned his entry into the home and how he would flee the scene.

So enter technology again, right? We have so much technology in our life that I don't even know how much people think about it. Now, obviously, Tim must have thought about it. I don't want to be tracked by my iPhone. I don't want to be tracked by this fitness tracker. So I'm going to take steps to make sure that they're turned off. I don't have them with me, whatever it is. But just think about all of the things today that are tracking us, whether you're streaming.

And so there's a record that you're at home, you're playing a video game, the camera surveillance that we have. I mean, just there are so many ways to either prove or disprove, which is, could be equally as important that you did or didn't do something. Yeah, and as smart as Tim may have thought he was to turn off all that stuff and make sure that he couldn't be tracked on his way over to Becky's house. He didn't think about deleting his browser history or whatever because the searches that he did are pretty damning and they were found. by investigators. So, you know, to take to take steps to cover yourself in one area, but just leave these blatant searches there is pretty, pretty foolish on his part. And that's one of the things I always think about.

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Learn more at SalisHealth.com and mention code. For 10% off your child's first year. Tim's DNA was not found on the patio chair used by the killer to climb onto the second story of the home. It was also not found on the bike, which was left less than a half a block from Tim's house. There was never a match found to a partial print left in the upstairs bedroom. However, DNA found under Becky's fingernails did not exclude Tim as a match. and neither did DNA from the small pieces of plastic found around her body.

Despite the bike not having his DNA on it, there was a connection, a secret Facebook profile. He had under the name John Smith had looked at a blue Schwinn bicycle for sale on Facebook marketplace, identical to the one investigators found abandoned near his home. With his own main Facebook profile, he also bought a black, mongoose bite. Also found during a search of Tim Bleafnick's home were stacks of reusable grocery bags from Aldi. According to prosecutor Josh Jones, Tim had fired through an Aldi bag, either an attempt to muffle the sound or to catch his shell casings, leaving bits and pieces of plastic

around the scene. Tim's attorney's theory was that Becky's killer had grabbed the Aldi bags from Becky's house, since many of us have stacks of plastic bags from the stores we shop at, and the attorney believed that Tim's DNA was on them from shuffling things back and forth with their boys. And more if I wanted to wait till now to talk about it, but, you know, if we go back, we talked about the fact that bits of plastic were found near Becky's body. We also said that she had been shot 14 times, but they only recovered eight shell cases. And that seems very strange to me.

you know, if a killer is going to be thorough, they're probably going to take the time to try to pick up all the shell casings or none at all. But to only pick up six of the 14, that didn't make a lot of sense to me. But now enter this theory of trying to use a grocery bag to catch the shell casings. Then the picture starts to become a little clearer. I did kind of find it,

hard the argument that this type of plastic grocery bag would muffle the sounds of a gunshot, I don't see how that would at all. But it could potentially catch shell casings as they eject. To me, this goes back to Tim being foolish at the same time he's trying to be smart. So he's got this idea that he's going to catch these shell casings as the eject. But on the other hand, he leaves remnants of the bag behind and some of the shell casings don't get caught and they're left behind. So, you know, he was trying to cover his tracks, but it doesn't seem like it worked out. No, just another example of people thinking they're smart enough to get away with stuff. And they're not.

Thankfully, it came to light that in January, 2023, Tim asked his next door neighbor, Bradley, Aman. whether he had any security cameras that covered his backyard. Bradley confirmed that he did not have any. This seems to point to Tim making sure he wouldn't be caught on his neighbor's security camera if they had one. But Tim apparently didn't consider whether Becky's neighbors had one. It was revealed that hours before anyone other than the person that killed her earlier that morning knew that Becky had been murdered. Tim was over at his father Ray's house, bringing stuff over for the boys to use like their basketball hoop. This seems like clear proof to many that by this time Tim already knew that Becky wouldn't be there to tell him he couldn't have the boys around his father unsupervised as she always did.

This was a clear indication that Tim knew that Becky wasn't going to be hassling him. but as nobody knew she was dead yet besides the killer, it's pretty compelling. Tim Bliefnick's defense attorney said she doesn't buy it that it's proof that Tim killed Becky because as she said, Ray was able to see his grandchildren during supervised visits. According to one of Becky's attorneys, the issue of the boys having unsupervised visitation with her grandfather was a non-negotiable issue for Becky. It was yet another thing that Becky wasn't willing to drop in just another way that Tim saw his control of her slipping.

In May 22, Becky texted her friend Nicole Bateman about Tim and his dad saying he told me if I outed his dad that he, as in Ray, would probably have to move, then kill himself. She added,

I absolutely think he will try to take the kids sometime. This text exchange in which Becky used the phrase outing Tim's dad, Ray, revolves around Al, or suspicions Becky had that Ray had been inappropriate with children, not her children, but it could certainly be why Becky didn't want the kids over there unsupervised.

Ray Bliefnick's attorney has strongly denied the allegations, allegations which have never been proven, and Ray has never been charged with any crimes related to these allegations. At trial, Tim Bliefnick didn't testify in his own defense. and on May 31st, after less than a week-long trial, the jury found him guilty on all charges. It took them about four hours to come to their decision. Despite all the planning and research, Tim put into trying to get away with Becky's murder,

the crime was sloppy. Some of the mistakes included looking up Becky's boyfriend's VIN and license plate numbers and searches about gunshot residue and using a crowbar to get into a home, and he was spotted on multiple cameras. But with the divorce trial date looming, it seems as if he felt it was his last chance.

In August, 2003, Timothy Bleifnick was sentenced to life in prison. It was a natural life sentence, meaning he will be in prison until he dies with no chance of parole. At sentencing, Judge Robert Adrian told Tim Bleafnick, you broke into her house and you shot her one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, thirteen, 14 times. Some of those shots were fired while she was lying on the ground. And you did all of that while your children were upstairs at your house, lying snug in their beds. And it's interesting to me more if that the judge literally said all 14. He was making that point, demonstrating that point of just exactly how many times he shot her and also making the point that some of those shots

came while she was already down and most likely dying. Yeah, I think it really illustrated the effort that it took to keep shooting her over and over and over again, you know, not that he snapped and did it once or twice and then realized what he had done and stopped. He kept going and going and going. So the judge really, really hammered at home. The victim impact statements focused on the pain that Tim had caused those still alive. Becky's mother, Bernadette Postal, said, you took from your boys the person who loved them the most on this earth.

Becky's sister, Sarah, said, your children's future will be forever impacted by your crime. How do you take three boys to the cemetery to celebrate Mother's Day? It's heartbreaking. maybe you should have Googled childhood PTSD in between your internet searches for homemade silencers and VIN numbers she said it was no accident that Becky had been found by her own father that afternoon he called my dad to set him up to find her that alone shows how cruel he really is and we didn't spend a lot of time talking about how horrible that would be for a father to be the one to find his daughter murdered. I think it kind of goes without

saying. But then when you think of it in the context of someone setting it up for the father to find his daughter, then that statement is true. It really does show how cruel this guy was. Yeah, as a father himself, to three little boys, you know, he's got to know what this is going to do to Becky's dad. Yet he doesn't have the empathy to just let her be found by whoever finds her. He sends her dad over there knowing that he's going to see this and it's going to stick with him forever. Well, and you can make the same argument that he had to have known what that was going to do to his kids, but he didn't care about that either. In Becky's final moments, someone who she once loved enough and felt safe enough with

to marry and have children with stared her down and shot her over a dozen times. We don't know if Tim was a good enough shot to purposely avoid vital areas, but he left her there and she didn't die from the shots. She died from bleeding to death because no one called for help for her and she couldn't do it because her killer knocked her cell phone out of her hand and paralyzed her before running off. knowing our home was empty and there would be no one else to do anything for her. She was lying there struggling to breathe, unable to move until she died and he left her like that. And that to me is absolutely heartbreaking.

You know, it's sad anytime someone loses their life. But to think about what Becky went through in her final moment. Number one, knowing that it was Tim who did it to her, the pain. the agony that she must have endured and the helplessness of not being able to move. And they're not being anyone there to help her. Timothy Bleafnick will serve his time at Graham Correctional Center, a medium security prison in Hillsborough, Illinois. He maintains his innocence.

And in a recent interview, he cried as he spoke to Aaron Moriarty on 48 hours. He said, the idea of murdering someone, let alone the mother of my kids, is not any part of who I am. When asked about his children, he answered, my kids, I just want them to know that I love them and I miss them. I'm innocent. I didn't kill Becky. He told Moriarty that he plans to file an appeal, saying at times it's felt like I'm watching somebody else's life from the outside. Like, it can't be me. So a lot of people may.

maintain their innocence morph, you know, they want to appeal. The jury found him guilty. The evidence seems to point to the fact that that he was guilty. One of the things that that always kind of is fascinating to me in these cases is when a convicted murderer either gives a statement, you know, to the family or in this case, an interview on 48 hours. and they cry. They turn the waterworks on. You know, they say all these different things. And I have the same question every time. Are they remorseful for what they did? Now, he's claiming he's innocent, but let's just say he's guilty as the jury found him to be. Or are they remorseful because

they're stuck in prison for the rest of their life? They got caught. And I tend to believe it's the latter most of the time. It's not. It's not. It's. to me it seems like some of them are never remorseful, just always maintaining their innocence, no matter how damning the evidence looks. They just can't bring themselves to admit to what they've done, even though they were found guilty and the evidence clearly points to it. For some reason, they just can't own up to it. Yeah, but in many cases, I think that's a calculated decision.

If you're going to try to appeal, which most people do, then don't you kind of have to maintain your innocence? but if you're truly sorry for something you've done, then you take ownership of it and say, I did this. Now I have to pay the price for it. And some people do that, but most people don't because either they're not sorry for what they did.

They're only sorry they got caught and they're still going to fight like hell to try to get out. In the 48 hours interview, Tim said that the quip on family feud about saying I do was a mistake. It was a joke. And it may have been, but looking back, it feels pretty uncomfortable to watch. Sarah thinks that Tim will always claim. He's innocent because, according to her,

he was never able to admit to fault or even compromise in life or marriage prior to this happening. She said, I think he truly believes that he is not at fault for this. And that's his own sick and twisted mental illness. She added, he has nothing else to lose. So why would he do anything different? So, you know, kind of backing up some of the things that we said, either he truly does not believe he's at fault, even if he knows in his mind that he committed the murder, or more likely to me, he's got nothing to lose at this point.

There's no good thing for him to come by saying, yes, I did this. I'm sorry. That doesn't benefit him. And I think these type of individuals are always about the what's in it for me or what's in my best interest. And it seems to me like Tim Bliefnick was one of those guys, is one of those guys. It seems that maybe Becky didn't realize the signs in time that there was trouble with Tim. Or maybe she didn't have enough support outside of the relationship to feel empowered to leave. But like all the other fatal domestic violence cases we hear about, the loss of Becky was just so foreseeable and understanding. necessary. Multiple petitions for orders of protection were denied. That doesn't mean that this would have stopped this from happening. And I don't know how many killers would be scared away or swayed by

court orders, but it's one thing that may have helped prevent this from happening. And it's clear as evidenced by Becky's messages and her conversations with people close to her. She was afraid of Tim. The three bleafnick children are now being cared for by Becky's parents. Becky's sister Sarah told People magazine, we will all spend the rest of our lives, making sure her boys know how much she loved them, how much she loves them still. Sarah also said on 48 hours, Becky would have wanted positive change to happen. She would want somebody else's life to be safe. One way she feels we can do this is by listening. If we can learn anything, if somebody reaches out to you and says that they're scared that they believe that their partner or whoever it is is capable of violence,

you need to believe them and make an active effort to make sure they're safe. Since 1989, October's been Domestic Violence Awareness Month in the United States. If you or someone you know needs help, you can call the Domestic Violence Hotline at 800799-723 or text Start to 88788. And you can visit the hotline.org for more research. There's a chat option on the website as well. If you're ever in doubt, not sure of how to leave a relationship safely, or how to help someone you know, please reach out and ask the hotline.

And if someone you know ever expresses fear of their partner, don't brush it off or try to rationalize the behavior. So more if as we wrap up this episode, obviously what Tim Bleafnick did was horrible. You know, this was a woman who he loved at one time. had three children with. To be able to shoot that person, 14 times to plan it out. And to know that you weren't only taking her life,

you were altering the lives of her family, her friends, your own three children. How does someone come to that decision? I just never understand it. But in Tim, I think we're looking at, looking at a guy, you know, who was very controlling. And I just wonder how much of this stemmed from the fact that he had lost a lot of his control. They were separated. They were going through this divorce. It was nasty. It was contentious. Most likely, you know, he didn't want to have to

pay child support, pay alimony. He didn't want to have to have to have to. He didn't want to have to to have his visits with his children supervised. So for a guy like Tim who was called manipulative and controlling, does it seem possible? And to me it does that, you know, these things that were going on kind of took all the power away from him. And then how does someone like that handle the situation?

And we know how Tim Bleafnick did. Yeah, what jumps out to me is that this wasn't like a spur of the moment, heat of the moment type of decision where he did it and he regretted it. And this was something that he planned. He plotted out. He did it over a period of time. He went there multiple times planning this. So it's clear that whatever was driving him was something that he fully intended to carry out without anything stopping him. that was what would happen to his kids or what they would think of him.

He wasn't thinking about that. He just wanted to commit this murder and get her out of the way. Yeah. I mean, just think about creating an alternate Facebook profile to buy a bike, knowing that you're going to use the bike to travel to Becky's house so that your car is not spotted. I mean, you know, that's, that's some pre-planning. So to your point, this wasn't just a spur of the moment thing. But at what point in all of that planning?

Do you think about your kids and what you're going to be doing to them? And I just think for a guy like Tim Bliefnick, he didn't think about it. Or if he did, he didn't care, one or the other. But that's it for our episode on Timothy Bliefnick. If you love the show and having done. so yet go out give us a five-star rating leave a review all of that helps keep telling your friends word of mouth about the criminology podcast really goes a long way if you want to find us on social media we're on acts formerly twitter with the handle at criminology pod you can also find us on

facebook by going to facebook.com slash criminology podcast or you can join our facebook discussion group criminology podcast discussion and fans. So that's it for another episode of criminology. But Morp and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then for Mike and Morp. We'll talk to you next week. Take care of everyone.